THEBACHA/FORT SMITH
There will be no shortage of bicycles in Fort Smith this coming spring and summer.
That's because the Fort Smith Metis Council has received a donation of more than 500 used bikes from an organization called Bicycles for Humanity.
Bicycles for Humanity is a grassroots movement with chapters in the U.S., Europe, Canada, Oceania and Mexico and is 100 per cent volunteer driven.
Thian Hundert, acting director of the Calgary chapter of the organization, said he first heard about Bikes for Kids in Fort Smith from one of the organization's volunteers who saw a story in a Metis newsletter.
Hundert said he was "absolutely" impressed by the project.
"We work with a similar program here in Calgary, so I was kind of familiar with the idea behind it," he said.
"And typically when we send our bikes overseas to developing nations, we provide bicycle mechanic training there so they have the skills to fix the bikes and continue to maintain the bikes. This is a very similar program to what we promote in Uganda. I thought it was a great fit."
The Calgary chapter of Bicycles for Humanity has sent bikes to Uganda, Mexico, and now, Fort Smith.
Ken Hudson, president of the Metis Council, said the plan is to give the bikes away to children and adults in a project called Bicycles for the Community.
The new initiative is an offshoot of a separate project from last year called Bikes for Kids.
"I had in mind a larger program to extend (bikes) to the whole community," said Hudson of the plans for the donation from Calgary.
The Metis president said the bikes arrived in a shipping container which was filled right to the ceiling last fall.
In all, there were just under 540 bikes in the container. The Metis Council paid about $7,000 for the shipment, including shipping costs to get the bikes to Fort Smith.
Hudson has dedicated a member of the Metis council to remove the bikes and inspect them individually for their road worthiness because the council has extra funding from a Department of Health and Social Services program.
"We've had one of our workers just dedicated to this because we have quite a bit of money in the program that's doing this, the wellness program," said Hudson. "So we're just using those funds to pay for the guy to do these bikes."
The worker has so far been concentrating on whole bikes and making sure that the bolts are all tight and the brakes are good. Some of the bikes need re-assembly and he will put these aside for later.
"If you think about it, we're going to have so many bikes in town I don't know if anybody is even going to bother stealing one," he quipped.
While they are recycled bikes, many are not overly used and some even look almost new. A few of the bikes have already been given away.
Hudson added the Metis Council has also bought helmets and bike locks to donate as well.
Bikes for Kids, the forerunner of Bicycles for the Community, is a joint effort of the Fort Smith Metis Council and the male division of the Fort Smith Correctional Complex. Inmates fix up old and unwanted bikes while learning valuable skills in the process, and give them away to children.
The correctional centre has decided to stick with just the Bikes for Kids project and let the Metis Council take care of Bicycles for the Community, according to Sue Glowach, senior communications advisor for the Department of Justice.
"The Fort Smith correctional centre and staff worked with the local Metis on the logistics of getting the donated bikes from down south," she said.
"However, it proved to be a large initiative - bigger than they could take on for the repairs."
"(Bikes for Kids) is a good program and manageable with their time. They are getting ready for the summer season to come.
Back in Calgary, Hundert says he is pleased to be able to help Fort Smith.
"We're happy to help in our own country, in our own backyard," he said. "A lot of our emphasis has been sending overseas to developing nations, but of the 1,500 bikes we collected last year almost half stayed in Canada. A quarter of the bikes stayed in Calgary. If we hear of a need in our own backyard, that is important to address as well."
Bikes for Humanity gets the bikes through donations, community clean-up events and even have found some at landfills.
Hundert said volunteers give the bikes safety checks before loading them onto shipping containers. To fit them into a container, the bikes are partially de-assembled. The pedals and front wheel are removed and tied to the frame of the bike.
After sending bikes to Uganda, Mexico and now Fort Smith, Bicycles for Humanity has a container ready to ship to South Africa.
